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Iranian cargo ships have suddenly departed from Malaysian waters in recent days and are heading back towards the Strait of Hormuz after the US and Iran reached agreement on a deal to extend their ceasefire.
Many Iranian vessels have sought sanctuary in south-east Asia since the US blockaded their home ports in April, but FT analysis of ship-tracking data shows six of the seven Iranian-flagged container ships reported in Malaysian ports and waters earlier this week had left by Thursday. Most of the departing vessels have declared destinations in the Gulf.
The true number of departures is likely to be much higher as ships owned or controlled by Iran often travel with their tracking systems turned off or under false flags. Experts said many of Iran’s shadowy fleet of oil tankers were also likely to be heading homeward.
“All of a sudden, the empty ships are heading back to Iran’s ports to pick up cargo,” said Charlie Brown, a Singapore-based senior adviser at United Against Nuclear Iran, a US-based group that campaigns for tough enforcement of sanctions against Tehran.
“Very clearly a signal has gone out that Iranian shipping is back in business,” Brown said.
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The presence of Iranian ships in Malaysian waters and their journeys to Russian, Chinese and Libyan ports since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran at the end of February have cast a light on Iran’s global trading network, which was already heavily diminished by years of US sanctions.
A handful of Iranian-flagged ships have been making regular visits to Russian ports in both the Baltic and Black Seas, then travelling to south-east Asia. International sanctions against Iran mean its vessels can only openly trade with a small number of nations.
In one case, the 208-metre-long Alor 2 container ship set off from Port Klang, Malaysia’s biggest port, on March 5. After sailing around Singapore, it reached an area of open sea off the coast of Malaysia’s east coast, known as the Eastern Outer Port Limits.
The 1,200 sq mile EOPL has long been seen as a “free parking zone” among the shipping industry as it is part of Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone — but beyond the 12 nautical mile limit of its territorial waters.
After two days in the EOPL, the Alor 2 turned and began a 10,000 nautical mile trip via the Suez Canal to the port of St Petersburg. It spent two days in the Russian maritime hub in late April, before a return journey to the EOPL that included a four-day stopover in Libya’s Misurata Port.
Having reached the EOPL on June 10, the Alor 2 anchored in Port Klang before setting off in the direction of the Gulf on Tuesday.
“When compared to conventional container ships, this is very unusual and uneconomic behaviour,” said Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a maritime intelligence analyst at shipping data company Windward.
Other Iranian ships have spent time in Malaysian waters between trips to Chinese ports.
The 366-metre-long Radin, for example, left Iran’s Bandar Abbas port on the Strait of Hormuz on March 1, just hours after the first attacks by the US and Israel. It spent the next two months visiting Chinese ports, including Shanghai and Gaolan on the south-east coast.
At Gaolan, the Radin took on cargo and set sail for the EOPL and then to Port Klang, where it anchored on May 4. On Tuesday it set off on course towards the Gulf.
The EOPL has become a notorious hotspot for illicit ship-to-ship oil transfers, where “dark fleet” tankers sidle up to one another and exchange fuel. One of the most common trades in recent years is for Iranian tankers to transfer their loads to Chinese vessels, which deliver the crude to domestic ports.
But with the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, this activity has mostly dried up. In February, 43mn barrels of Iranian crude were transferred between ships in the EOPL, according to maritime data company Kpler. This had fallen to 13mn in May and just 500,000 barrels in the first 10 days of June.
There are still more than 250 vessels in the EOPL, satellite photographs show, though around only 80 have turned on their tracking device — known as the automatic identification system, or AIS.
Analysts said they expected Iranian tankers outside the Gulf to return there to stock up on oil and then head straight back to the EOPL.
“In the next 10-12 days, we will see a great deal of loaded Iranian tankers appearing in the Malacca Strait and sailing on to the [EOPL] to meet Chinese ships, assuming that China remains a willing buyer of Iranian crude,” said Bockmann.
Brown said: “There are around 24 Iranian tankers waiting to leave [Iran’s oil hub] Kharg Island — I fully expect most of them to head to the EOPL and then it’s business as usual.”
FT analysis of European Space Agency data, based on a radar satellite pass from June 14, identified 24 large vessels of a size consistent with being oil tankers located off the island’s eastern coast.
The vessels began waiting near the island after the US blockade began in April.
The Malaysian government, the Klang port authority and the owners of the Alor 2 and Radin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Additional reporting by Chris Cook in Sofia
